


Kickstart

by broniichan



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, loosely based off of a personal experience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 08:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12526812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broniichan/pseuds/broniichan
Summary: Somehow, the guy’s scowl deepens whenever his eyes pass over Shouyou, and Shouyou breezes past with upturned nose and feigned indifference. But his thoughts and eyes get magnetically dragged to the guy, even though he brags he doesn’t care.





	Kickstart

That guy.

Majors in _who cares?_ Not Shouyou, though he’s spent far too much time imagining what kind of program would accept him. Thus far he’s narrowed it down to either sadism, world domination, or business and marketing; something where innate assholery would flourish.

Shouyou had seen him briefly in the first week of the semester, when out enjoying the spring breeze and the scent of cherry blossoms, and nearly choked and collapsed with the force of the guy’s aura. A black cloud of noxious fumes radiated from him, blasting everyone away like a forcefield. Dark eyebrows permanently pinched together, and steel eyes like unsheathed knives sat above a downturned mouth. Sleek black hair hung over his forehead, curtaining his expression. Shouyou immediately disliked him, shuddering and thinking, _That’s the kind of guy who ends up a murderer._

But Shouyou’s full hatred wasn’t ordained by the universe until a couple of weeks later. They just so happened to share a class, American Plays, which Shouyou was only taking to fulfill three of his general education requirements. They managed to stay on opposite sides of the room, with Shouyou doing his best to never look at him, but the thinly stretched peace inevitably snapped during a discussion on Blanche and Stanley from _A Streetcar Named Desire_ , where Shouyou took Blanche’s side and _that guy_ took Stanley’s. What started as an in-depth look into the characters’ strengths and weaknesses quickly disintegrated into a shouting match over what a jerk Stanley was and how obnoxious Blanche was.

The professor kicked them out for the rest of the period.

Now, Shouyou feels like a cat whenever he sees the guy: hackles raised, teeth bared. Somehow, the guy’s scowl deepens whenever his eyes pass over Shouyou, which Shouyou almost prides himself for, and he breezes past with upturned nose and feigned indifference. But his thoughts and eyes get magnetically dragged to the guy, even though he brags he doesn’t care.

He still doesn’t know the guy’s name.

On a pleasant Saturday, Shouyou shows up on the lawn for kickball club. He’d joined at the urging of his RA, Sugawara, partly because it sounded like fun and partly because he was desperately avoiding his chemistry packet. The club meets every other week for a couple of games, and Shouyou’s made fast friends just in the couple of times he’s gone.

“Shouyou!” Nishinoya calls, arms flapping in greeting like wind turbines.

Grinning, Shouyou dashes over, pushing off springy grass to jump to a stop beside the clump of people.

“Hiya!” he chirps.

Others send back greetings, and Nishinoya and Tanaka suck Shouyou into a conversation about lemurs, which Shouyou doesn’t understand but pretends he does anyways.

After a minute of incomprehensible discourse on lemur philosophy, Sugawara disrupts the conversation with, “Is everyone here?”

Mumbles of assent fill the air, so Sugawara’s friend and co-leader of the club, Sawamura, holds out a cup of wood popsicle sticks. “Let’s draw teams, then.”

The others crowd around, picking out sticks and finding their teammates. Shouyou draws a stick with red at its tip– Sawamura’s team. Nishinoya also draws red, but Tanaka waves a blue one at them, leering.

“Prepare to be crushed by justice,” Tanaka boasts, teeth flashing in a smirk. “The only red you’ll see is your own blood!”

“Tanaka, please,” Sugawara mutters.

Sawamura’s brow crinkles. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh _yeah?!_ ” Nishinoya hollers back, eyes crackling with fire. “Well, you’ll be blue after you choke!”

“Enough,” Sugawara sighs while Sawamura shakes his head.

Nishinoya and Tanaka quiet down as everyone falls into teams, but they send each other facial expressions and arm gestures discernible only to the two of them.

“Hey, are we missing someone?” Sawamura asks, rattling the single stick left in the cup.

Chin lifted, Sugawara scans the group, bottom lip curling in concentration. After a moment, he says, “I don’t see Asahi.”

Nishinoya snaps out of his interpretive dance with Tanaka. “Oh yeah,” he says, “His prof changed the deadline for a paper.”

“Oh, okay,” Sugawara says, nodding as Nishinoya strikes up the visual trash talking again.

Sawamura hands Sugawara the last popsicle stick, a red one. “Well, looks like you’ll have to play with one less person,” he teases, eyebrows arching. With a simpering smile, he claps a hand to Sugawara’s shoulder.

Sugawara’s lips purse. “No thank you,” he answers, eyes gleaming with murder. Brows poised, he shakes off Sawamura’s hand.

Sawamura laughs, while something in the distance snatches Sugawara’s attention.

“Hey, I know him!” Sugawara pushes past Nishinoya and Tanaka and waves his arm. “Hey, Kageyama-kun!”

Shouyou’s head whips to the guy walking along the path encircling the lawn. An anvil drops in his stomach. _No._ It’s him, _the_ guy, the one he’s fantasized punching in the face, dressed in a black t-shirt and denim jeans with a messenger bag strap slung over his shoulder. Of all the paths on campus, he just had to be walking on this one at this moment, just so he could personally ruin Shouyou’s life. _Kageyama,_ Shouyou internally growls, pushing out his bottom lip. _What a gross name._

The guy, or rather, Kageyama, stops short. “Sugawara-san?” he calls back, voice just as gruff and callous as his exterior.

“Would you like to play kickball with us?” Sugawara asks, gesturing to the others. “We’re one person short.”

Kageyama’s brows shoot up, his eyes darting from person to person. He lingers on Shouyou, who defiantly glares back, before furrowing his brows again. Arms hovering awkwardly by his sides, his focus returns to Sugawara. “Uh, I don’t…”

“It’d just be one game,” Sugawara presses. “We’re _desperate_ for a player.”

Sawamura snorts.

Sugawara ignores him and blasts Kageyama with a radiant smile. “It’ll be fun, I promise! Please?”

 _Say no, say no, say no, say no,_ Shouyou chants to himself, knowing that once Sugawara laid that wonderfully wholesome and devious smile, there was no saying no.

At least Kageyama looks unwilling, but even he can’t resist. “Fine, I guess,” he mumbles through tight lips, burying his hands in his jean pockets.

Shouyou mentally douses himself in gasoline.

“Great!” After making sure Kageyama doesn’t escape, Sugawara turns back to the group, a glittering grin lighting his face. Locking eyes with Sawamura, he strides to him and punches him in the stomach.

Indifferent to Sawamura’s retching, Sugawara plops his hands on his hips and waits as Kageyama plods across the lawn. White fingers clenched on his bag’s strap, Kageyama lurks just outside the group, lids shielding his eyes. A muscle in his jaw ticks.

“You’ll be on my team, Kageyama-kun,” Sugawara says. “Let’s go ahead and get playing– you can learn everyone’s names as we go.”

Kageyama’s eyelids flutter and he looks up, veins snaking up forearms tight to his chest, and he nods and looks back down.

The two teams disperse, with a last knowing glance between Sugawara and Sawamura and hoots from Tanaka. Following Nishinoya and Sawamura, Shouyou watches Kageyama out of the corner of his eye. Kageyama doesn’t acknowledge Shouyou, sliding the strap over his head and setting the bag down in the grass.

Someone tosses a coin– red team pitches first. Shouyou ends up in the back field with Sawamura and a couple others, while Nishinoya is at second base. A kid Shouyou doesn’t know well pitches. In the line of kickers at home plate, Kageyama is next to last, his arms folded and shoulders held. Shouyou puts blinders on and focuses on the game–Tanaka scores a run, flashing a middle finger salute at Nishinoya, and Sugawara and another get knocked out–until with three out, the blue team switches to the field. Nishinoya places himself first in line to kick, smiling at Tanaka on third base. Sugawara pitches, and Nishinoya sends the ball to the back, easily snatching first and second base.

Second in line, Shouyou steps up to home base. At first base stands Kageyama, regarding Shouyou with a wrinkled nose and eyes full of contempt. A faint smile crosses Shouyou’s lips as he stares back, and Kageyama’s brows twitch tighter. Inhaling, Shouyou turns his attention to Sugawara.

Brushing a hand through silvery hair, Sugawara smiles like he’s about to very politely and very neatly dismember Hinata. Dropping his hand and gripping the ball, he turns and faces Shouyou squarely. Shouyou’s pulse bounces faster. Smile swiped away, Sugawara raises the ball and pitches, ball rushing straight to Shouyou. Shouyou kicks.

_Crap._

The kick dribbles right back down the middle with little air, headed right for Sugawara. Dim shouts and pulsating blood in his ears, Shouyou sprints towards first base. Kageyama awaits him, but he’s rooted directly in front of the base, blocking Shouyou’s path to it. He isn’t even watching for the ball; he just glowers at Shouyou. Someone in Shouyou’s periphery has the ball and chases after him. With no time to dart around Kageyama, he has only one option.

He barrels into Kageyama. They both tumble over, bones clacking together and exposed skin scraping dirt. Shouyou’s hipbone burns and blood prickles his elbow, but the grimy white of the base rests under his forearm. He grins. _Safe._

But Kageyama is also under him.

Shouyou jolts up onto his hands, Kageyama’s shoulders between them. They make eye contact. Kageyama’s forehead is exposed with dark hair askew, and for once, it’s not marred by a scowl. Surprised thin eyebrows arch over eyes blown wide. Up close, his irises are dappled blue and gray, not steel, and his mouth parts open. His Adam’s apple bobs.

Seconds tick in silence.

Blinking, Shouyou jerks up to standing, ignoring his scuffed knee and elbow. The blood beneath his skin boils.

“Are you two okay?” Sugawara rushes over and holds his hand out to Kageyama. After a breath, Kageyama sits and takes his hand, rising to his feet.

Shouyou nods. “Yep!”

Kageyama grunts.

“Nice, Shouyou!” Nishinoya calls from third base, giving Shouyou a thumbs up.

Shouyou returns the thumbs up.

“Yeah, that was quite impressive, Hinata,” Sugawara says. His lips mush together, like a dam holding back a wave of laughter.

Shouyou’s teeth flash. “Yeah, see that?” he blurts at Kageyama, clenching his fists. “I’m safe! _Hah!_ ” He aims a punch to Kageyama’s upper arm.

“Shut up,” Kageyama mutters, bending over to brush dirt from the front of his jeans.

Cackles bubble out Shouyou’s mouth, unable to stop even when Kageyama shoots icy looks over his shoulder.

Sugawara returns to the center of the field, and before play can restart, Shouyou sneaks a glance at Kageyama’s profile. Splotches of pink lay along his cheekbone, spreading and deepening at his ears. Shaking his head, Shouyou turns back to Sugawara.

The game sails on; Shouyou scores a couple of runs in its duration. By the end, the red team wins, to Tanaka’s despair. Everyone parts with ‘good game’ and ‘see you next time,’ but Kageyama takes off without acknowledging Shouyou, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

Shouyou doesn’t care one bit. After all, Tanaka and Nishinoya invite him to come see their band, which they describe as, “sexy, edgy, rollicking anarchist punk rock infused with a kick of polka and gregorian chants.”

Though, Hinata’s heart bangs a drum set about as hard as Tanaka and Nishinoya’s poor drummer before American Plays the next week. He’s early, for the first and probably only time, and with only a couple of others there, he plops down in his usual seat without a word. Leaning over the chair’s side, he unzips his backpack and takes out his pen and his notebook, which he hasn’t exactly been taking notes in, and slaps them on the desk. He jams his hand into the smaller front pocket, digging for spearmint gum.

Someone slides into the seat beside him.

Hunched over, Shouyou pries out a gum stick and peeks over his shoulder. His face heats up and his stomach roils at black hair and downcast dark blue eyes. Kageyama says nothing, intent on setting his notebook and pencils in the exact correct spot on his desk, centered and symmetrical. Swallowing thickly as he straightens up, Shouyou unwraps the gum with shaky fingers and crams it in his mouth. Chewing at least sort of occupies him. He keeps his eyes pointed to the desk, refusing to let them sway to Kageyama.

Painful seconds ooze by, the air clogged with discomfort. Shouyou frantically chomps on his gums. _What the hell?! What’s going on? Is he going to say something? Or does he want_ me _to? I can’t talk to him! Should I say something? What if he just accidentally picked the wrong seat? Ooh, maybe an alien killed him and is wearing his skin! The outer beings have infiltrated!_

“H-H--”

Shouyou jumps.

“...Hey.” Kageyama turns to Shouyou and holds up his hand, less like a wave and more like a militaristic salute. His eyes can’t seem to choose between Shouyou and the floor.

Shouyou blinks back in surprise. “Hey…?”

Kageyama’s hand drops. “Uh.” His neck and shoulders are rigid, a red sweeping up his skin. “I never actually… um… introduced myself.” Blinking, he swells himself up with a gust of air and lifts his chin. “I’m Kageyama Tobio.”

Shouyou dimly reconsiders the alien stealing Kageyama’s skin theory; Kageyama’s eyes are hopeful and tentative, his mouth tugged into a nervous pout. Long, nimble fingers pick at frayed denim on his jeans.

_Huh._

The corners of Shouyou’s mouth lift. “Hinata Shouyou,” he responds, nodding his head. “Nice to meet you.”

**Author's Note:**

> yeah so back when I was 12 I played a game of kickball with the guy I liked at the time and he tried to block me from first base so I did what any overly competitive asshole would do and slammed that bitch to the ground  
> fucking meet me in the pit _zach_
> 
> also when I took ap literature that blanche vs. stanley debate got pretty heated
> 
> ....anywho I wrote this like a year ago and forgot it?? but I just happened on it in my googledocs so lmao, here we are
> 
> find me on that bullshit on [tumblr](https://broniichan.tumblr.com)


End file.
